Consumers Embrace Driverless Delivery, But Infrastructure Lags

Lack Of Coordination for Autonomous Delivery Creates Havoc

Driverless cars are showing up in mall valet lines or curbside pick-ups without the infrastructure to properly handle the driverless vehicles. Consumers today are using self-driving cars to pick up merchandise at stores and restaurants as a matter of convenience, but the retailers and restaurants do not have the capabilities to coordinate this type of commerce. “It’s an early, confident bet that autonomous vehicles won’t just change how we get around, but they’ll create an entirely new channel of commerce,” said Seidi.

More incidents like the one that happened last year, when a driverless Waymo taxi was stuck in the drive-thru at a Chick-fil-A in Santa Monica, California, after becoming confused, thereby holding up the drive-thru for over 30 minutes are becoming more commonplace. “As more and more companies start building these cars, and more of these cars begin to operate in our U.S. cities, those parking lots that are already very congested are going to be inundated with a new type of transportation for the very first time,” explained Seidi.

Autonomous Last Mile Delivery Grows Worldwide

Last year, the autonomous last-mile delivery market was $26.6 billion and is expected to grow to over $50 billion by 2028. Typically, the last-mile delivery is the most expensive aspect of delivery costs for retailers and brands and involves the movement of goods from a distribution center to the final delivery point, like a customer’s home. While currently a large portion of autonomous delivery is being used with delivery bots and drones, self-driving vehicles are growing in popularity. In some cases, self-driving vehicles are being used as a convenience factor for arranging the pick-up of goods from malls and stores by customers.

Infrastructure Can Help Coordinate Delivery Pick-Up For Autonomous Vehicles

Autolane has built an expansive curbside infrastructure for autonomous vehicles with its technology that enables retailers, restaurants, and property owners to seamlessly manage autonomous pickup, drop-off, and delivery operations on private property. “A coordination platform that functions like air traffic control, but for cars, robots, and drones on private land is needed, and Autolane is positioned as the connective layer between vehicles and the businesses they visit,” explained Seidi.

Autolane is built on a framework that provides an infrastructure that includes communication, coordination, and control. Communication is providing properties with the knowledge of which vehicles are arriving and when. Then coordinating those vehicles to a specific stall/spot and, lastly, providing controls so the businesses can pop a trunk or unlock a car to complete a handoff. “What Autolane is designed to do is to control and alleviate that chaos for private properties and businesses,” said Seidi.

Autolane Plans Additional U.S. Market Expansion

Autolane has just launched its autonomous delivery platform in Austin, Texas, with a fleet of thirteen Model Y Tesla vehicles that are currently doing supervised autonomous restaurant deliveries in the Austin area. The autonomous delivery operation is currently live with restaurant deliveries at TSO and integrated with AI company, Nash. “We plan to have additional major retail brands that will be coming on board later this year to use our autonomous delivery platform for last-mile delivery,” said Seidi.

Last year, Autolane secured $7.4M in funding and launched a partnership with Simon Properties to expand autonomous vehicle infrastructure across Simon Centers in the U.S. “As the largest retailer REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) in the world, they gave us a lot of early credibility and this real-world environment to learn how to build our tools correctly,” explained Seidi.

Recently, Autolane has expanded into the Atlanta and Phoenix markets and now has ten major shopping centers with more leading retail REITs like Federal Realty, Jamestown, and Macerich (in addition to Simon). The company is planning to expand to Miami in August and Los Angeles in September.

Earlier this year, Autolane and Hevo announced a partnership to integrate wireless charging into autonomous vehicle operations, furthering the expansion of automated delivery capabilities, including navigating delivery hubs seamlessly, completing autonomous tasks and charging wirelessly without human interventIon.

While the U.S. market expands with autonomous delivery efforts in the private sector, other countries, like Singapore, have expanded their efforts in the public sector with more advanced and expansive use cases than the U.S.

Singapore’s Autonomous Delivery Push

Singapore is positioning itself as one of the world’s leading test markets for autonomous vehicles and delivery robotics in the public sector. As the country continues to expand its active testbed in more parts of the country, major private-sector companies are getting actively involved. Recently, autonomous logistics company Neolix partnered with Singapore deep-tech firm QuikBot to build an end-to-end delivery chain that moves a package from public roads into buildings and all the way to an individual door, without a human in the process.

According to the Land Transport Authority (LTA) in Singapore, the country is facing a tight labor market, specifically public transit driver shortages, an ageing population, and land scarcity, which has put a focus on autonomous solutions for the city-state. Singapore’s AVs can alleviate manpower constraints by taking over routine and repetitive work. Singapore’s move toward a dedicated Autonomous Vehicle Act is emerging as a template that other markets are watching closely, both at the national and private sector levels.

A Fragmented Market For Autonomous Delivery

As more countries and regions look to the expansion of autonomous deliveries, the U.S. market is focused on improving the private sector market with a better coordinated effort in terms of the autonomous delivery market. However, today, the current market landscape is fragmented in terms of autonomous delivery efforts, including some major players like Walmart, Amazon, and DoorDash all testing various delivery methods.

“The industry has roughly 15 such players today, but is likely growing to around 50 within three years,’ explains Seidi. Other notable players in the space of autonomous delivery include Starship Technologies, which operates robots for food and parcel delivery in cities and university campuses, and Uber’s driverless grocery and food delivery services.

“Autonomous vehicles are already creating friction at the exact places retailers can’t afford it, including parking lots, drive-throughs, and valet lanes, without the coordinated infrastructure to support the growth of autonomous vehicles,” explained Seidi.

Whether Autolane becomes the leader of autonomous commerce or one of several competing companies will likely hinge on how fast automakers roll out unsupervised full self-driving vehicles. “This is probably the mid-90s of e-commerce happening right now for autonomous commerce. And Autolane is going to be one of those major players,” explains Seidi.